Lavrusenko M. Pre-Christian past in Ukrainian literature of the 20th century: the problem of correlation between scientific and artistic cognition

The paper is dedicated to the investigation of correlation between scientific and artistic cognition of Ukrainian literature of the 20th century. The classification of works on pre-historic themes based on the systematic analysis is proposed. Cognitive and educational resources of such kind of prose, its topicality is pointed out. The scheme of studying poetic manner of D.Humenna's and Valeriy Shevchuk's scientific and popular prose is defined. The effectiveness of using literary criticism and professional method for analysing historical, archeological, folklore, mythological and linguistic components of the works is proved. The specific character of Ukrainian fiction about pre-Christian times is determined. It is accentuated that the spirit and temporal space of D.Humenna's prose about pre-historic epochs have pro-ukrainian tendency. Artistic comprehension of scientific knowledge is achieved through the methods of stylization and reflection. The characters embody general tendencies of the development of the ancient society. The ways of combining scientific and artistic cognition in historic-artistic, artistic-historic and artistic-documentary novels of I.Bilyk about literate pre-Cristian epochs are defined. Manifestation of the national description of the images of his works emphasized.